My boyfriend’s birthday was this week so I knew I’d have to make him an outrageous birthday cake (you’ll see that later in the week), but I also wanted to make him a birthday dinner. When I told him I’d make whatever he wanted I wasn’t surprised when he chose pulled pork sandwiches with coleslaw. Along with turkey sandwiches and chicken cutlets it’s one of his go-to foods.

There is about a foot of snow on the ground so cooking the pork on a grill wasn’t an option. I thought I’d try this recipe, but wasn’t wild about having my oven tied up for 7 hours. After reading a number of Chowhound forums on pulled pork, I’d decided to just buy a slow cooker. I’m fortunate to have a fair amount of cupboard space and the cost of the slow cooker, plus the $5 I spent on a pork shoulder is less than I would have spent if we’d gone to Dinosaur BBQ for dinner.

I chose this one because it's red

My boyfriend described this dinner along with his cake as the best meal he’s ever eaten. So I’ll definitely be making this recipe again. The only problem I had was trimming the fat from the pork shoulder. My knives are all really dull, so this was a tedious process. I plan on taking my knives to Broadway Vacuum this week to have them sharpened.

Place onion on the bottom of your slow cooker. Place pork shoulder, trimmed of any obvious excess fat, into slow cooker on top of onions. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together all remaining ingredients to form the barbecue sauce. Feel free to adjust salt and pepper to taste, if necessary. Pour half of the sauce over the pork and cover. Set remaining sauce aside. Cook over low heat for about 8 hours (or according to your slow cooker’s presets). Remove pork to a large bowl and shred with two forks. Transfer meat back into slow cooker and cook for a few more minutes, until meat has soaked up the sauce. Pulled pork can be held on the “warm” setting in the slow cooker for serving. Serve on soft sandwich rolls, topped with extra barbecue sauce.

BBQ Sauce cast of characters

Cole Slaw

Every time I make cole slaw I use a slightly different recipe. Since I was making this for my boyfriend I tried to make it similar to his grandmother’s recipe which he always raves about. His great aunt told us she’d put 2 tbsp. of sugar in a large bowl, so I added 1 tbsp. Personally I found it too sweet.